Investorial

Coming back from a month of vacationing, I needed to catch up on all the past financial headlines. But I could care less about the recent China markets situation, or the Canadian Federal bank decision on Canadian interest rate. My mind’s still in vacation mode, I suppose… but the bargain hunter in me loves hearing about good deals, and the fact that PH&N is now making its products more accessible to Canadian investors was a headline I naturally gravitated towards.

I’ve previously blogged on how I loved PH&N - a Canadian investment management firm possessing a terrific reputation. On July 2^nd, PH&N will launch B and F series of their funds. Their elitist minimum investment restriction lowered to $5,000 from $25,000. Compared to its Canadian peers, its funds bear MER costs that are well below the industry standard. Isn’t that a refreshing concept to hear from an investment company? (more…)

If you haven’t heard, let me catch you up by saying that Bell Canada (BCE) recently announced that it is in leveraged buy-out talks with a consortium of Pension Plans (including Ontario Teachers Pension Plan) and private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR). The stock price has been pushed up amidst the frenzy created by BCE’s senior management.

I couldn’t express my feelings on this any better than Mark Evans. Mark has been writing about the telecom industry for years. He lays out very nicely talkiing points that mirror my sentiments of this proposal.

But one thing is certain, in the age-old market system of buyers and sellers, both groups are always hoping to outmaneuver each other. To put it plainly, a buyer buys in hopes of profiting, so why would a seller sell if (more…)

First, a correction is in order. In my previous post theorizing a Conservative government conspiracy about the income trust taxation proposal, I erroneously stated that the Conservative party held a slight majority government. In truth, they are trying to make a minority government work. So far this year, I’m looking like a genius with a few recent developments aiming to kill this bill. Let’s get caught up!

Two opposition parties, the Liberals and Bloc Québécois are trying to force special parliamentary hearings to probe the controversial tax — even though Parliament is not sitting — to vote on whether to call witnesses as part of a reconsideration of the tax. (more…)

On this, the final trading day of 2006, I thought it’d be appropriate to editorialize a little about Canada’s biggest investment news of 2006. [Editor's note: Although I'm sure some observant readers will realize that technically, the final trading day of 2006 has already passed!] Finance minister Jim Flaherty will forever be associated with introducing the proposal of taxing income trusts to curtail the rush of Canadian corporations converting their structure for tax advantages. My personal position is clear - I welcome anything that helps to keep junk companies with no business adopting such a structure from carrying on as income trusts.

The whole deal still sounds very fishy. Shortly after the shocking Halloween announcement, the market reacted by dropping the income trust sector by more than 20%, almost $40 Billion dollars of wealth overnight! The ordeal had landed nods for Jim to be the 2006 Canadian business news-maker of the year. But 2007 could hold more surprises, so hold on tight! (more…)

Ever since I mourned the loss of Ameritrade Canada to the buy-out from TD Waterhouse Canada, I’ve been hot on their tail about lowering brokerage commission rates. I was remiss to have not blogged about TD Waterhouse’s new Active Investor commission rates policy, but it’s not too late to correct that oversight!

I’ll scrutinize the fine points of that policy to illustrate that TD Waterhouse has merely put forth a shell to fool customers. The only people able to take advantage of this policy are the really high net-worth account holders. < ?php if (is_home()) { ?>More analysis after the jump!< ?php } ?> (more…)

One of the ways to monitor investment trends is to find out how they are marketed. Mutual fund names are often a good indication of how fund companies wish to reach their target investors. Remember those days when every mutual fund wanted to add the word “tech” into their name? For a while, everybody wanted to be involved in “nano-tech”, “real estate”. When dividend and value investing styles swung back into admiration, funds were tripping over themselves to make those two words show up.

It’s no surprise that “income trust” was also a hot naming convention for Canadian mutual funds, but the recent income trust melt-down due to new Canadian government tax law proposals have dampen those feelings. CIBC Asset Management has just renamed two of its income trust funds with a shady wolf-in-sheep’s clothing intent. (more…)

Let’s face it, most investing decisions are made as easily as throwing a dice. I have a pretty hot temper, so I make it a point not to jump into things when it comes to investment decisions. This explains why I haven’t covered the recent Canadian Income Trusts melt-down like some of my peers have. There’s been some excellent discussions brewing. Almost a week has past, so here’s my perspective.

I’ve been a very disloyal Canadian investor. For the last 2 years, I’ve only batted eyes at U.S. companies while the Canadian indexes kept creeping higher. However, I’ve recently taken interest in beaten-up Canadian companies such as Loblaw, and Canadian oil and natural gas income trusts. My interest started with these income trusts due to their pricing issues in July and August, as well as the Amanranth hedge fund debacle. Such negative news always help to peak the interest for the contrarian in me. I can’t believe my knowledge ramp-up of income trusts have come at such a time of opportunity! (more…)

Canadian investors really treat our big banks and their mutual funds as angels. While our American friends keep the pressure on fund companies to lower MERs, Canadians cannot see through the devil’s disguise. I wouldn’t mind as much if those funds performed well, but their abysmal net returns makes me wonder why they can justify those high fees? Our investment watchdogs north of the border have failed in affecting mutual fund fee changes. But instead of playing the victim, why not step up and try to be a solution to the problem? This is the first installment of a series called Canadian Banks / Mutual Funds Watch, that I intend to develop on-going. (more…)